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Anthropology is the study of human societies and cultural difference, at all times and in all places.
Its approach is comparative, in that we ask not only why people think and act in the ways they do, but why they should do things in one way here and in another way there. It is holistic, in that it looks for connections between aspects of life - familial, economic, political, religious - that are otherwise parcelled up between different disciplines for separate study. It looks at social life 'from the inside', from the point of view of those living it, with an emphasis on the fine grain of everyday activities. And to gain this inside view, it adopts the method of participant observation, involving prolonged periods of fieldwork.
Perhaps what is most distinctive about the subject, however, is that anthropologists don't so much study people as study with people. We learn to see things in the ways they do. And that can lead us to perceive our own world quite differently too.
An education in anthropology therefore not only furnishes us with knowledge about the world; it also educates our perception of the world, and opens our eyes to other possibilities of being. It is about learning how to learn.
Please use the menu on the left to find out about undergraduate courses in the Department of Anthropology.
